Abandoned Towns
The long red sandstone Richardson Store behind dry grass and a bare tree, its front portico collapsed, March 2015

Railroad and road town · Farm and ranch town · On Route 66

Montoya

A railroad and cattle stop that lived on Route 66 traffic, then lost it to I-40. Its landmark, the red sandstone Richardson Store, lost its roof in 2014; its new owner plans to rebuild it.

35°05′59″N 104°03′50″W · ≈4,320 ft

Photo: Ammodramus, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Private · not open to the public

The Richardson Store is private property, and the National Park Service says it is not open to the public (April 2026). Its owner announced restoration plans in January 2025. Legends of America describes it behind a chain-link fence and the buildings north of the road on a private ranch. Federal land records (PAD-US) show no public land here. See Montoya from the frontage road, and don't go past fences or into the ruins.

Overview

A store between the railroad and the road

The collapsed portico at the north end of the Richardson Store, behind a chain-link fence, March 2015
The collapsed portico at the north end of the Richardson Store, behind a chain-link fence, March 2015 · Photo: Ammodramus, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

Montoya lies on the plains of western Quay County, between Mesa Rica to the north and Mesa de las Palomas to the south, 22 miles west of Tucumcari. It began in 1901 and 1902, when the Rock Island railroad built through and its work camp became a stop for loading cattle. Yetta Kohn, a widow, and her sons started the T4 Cattle Company here, along with a store, a bank and a land company. The T4 is still one of the biggest ranches in the country, at about 220,000 acres in 2023.

The town's other business was the road. G. W. Richardson opened a store in 1908, and when the state improved the road between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa in 1918 he moved across the tracks to meet it, in a long red sandstone building. That road became Route 66. Through the 1930s and 1940s the Richardson Store sold gas, groceries, saddle blankets and windmill parts, held the post office window, and offered travelers shade under its elms. A Sinclair station ran from 1925 to the mid-1970s.

Interstate 40 passed a few hundred yards to the south from the late 1950s, and traffic stopped coming. The store closed in the 1970s and went on the National Register in 1978. In 2014 its roof and portico fell in. Montoya today is a few ranch homes north of the railroad, the ruined store, an old stone house and a cemetery along the frontage road. In January 2025 the store's new owner published a plan to rebuild it as a store and lodging.

Timeline

Railroad, ranch and Route 66

  1. The Rock Island railroad builds through, and a work camp becomes a railroad stop and cattle loading point. Legends of America says a few families already lived here, at a place called Roundtree.
  2. Yetta Kohn, a widow, and her sons found the T4 Cattle Company and open a store, a bank and a land company in Montoya.
  3. G. W. Richardson, a storekeeper from Missouri, opens a wooden store by the railroad.
  4. The state improves the road between Tucumcari and Santa Rosa. Richardson moves across the tracks to the road, into a red sandstone building, by the National Park Service's account.
  5. The road becomes US 66 in 1926. Route 66 News dates the sandstone store to the mid- to late 1920s, and its present owner to 1928.
  6. A Sinclair station opens. It runs until the mid-1970s.
  7. The store's busiest years: gas, groceries, ranch supplies and a post office window under the shade of tall elms.
  8. Clara Kohn buys part of the Bell Ranch, and the T4 grows to 180,000 contiguous acres.
  9. Interstate 40 is built a few hundred yards south of the store. The NPS gives 1956; the store's owner says work in Quay County began in 1959.
  10. The store closes. Legends of America ties it to the owner's death in the mid-1970s; the present owner says 1978.
  11. The Richardson Store is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
  12. After heavy rains, the store's roof and front portico collapse.
  13. The store's new owner, Tim Hagaman, publishes plans to restore it with a new roof and front wall, as a store and lodging.
  14. A video posted February 22 shows the walls behind a fence with a new Richardson Store sign, and the fallen roof still heaped at the north end.

The landmark

The Richardson Store

The store from the northwest, with the fallen portico at left, March 2015
The store from the northwest, with the fallen portico at left, March 2015 · Photo: Ammodramus, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The National Park Service describes a building made for the heat: a big portico out front to shade the windows and the gas pumps, a recessed door, and high windows that let in light and breeze but not sun. The portico and the west wall were painted white, and faded stenciled letters on the west side read "Richardson Store." The Richardsons lived in a house on the east side, with a pump shed at the corner. Mrs. Richardson ran the post office in the building.

Sources differ on when the sandstone store went up. The NPS says Richardson built it in 1918, when he moved to the road. Route 66 News put it in the mid- to late 1920s in 2014, and its present owner calls it the 1928 store. They also differ on when it closed: the mid-1970s, after the owner died, says Legends of America; 1978, says the present owner.

In August or September 2014, after heavy rains, the roof and the portico collapsed, the New Mexico Route 66 Association reported. Its president doubted the store could be restored. Photos taken in March 2015 show the long sandstone walls standing, the portico's timbers and tin roof heaped at the north end, and a chain-link fence along the front.

In January 2025 Tim Hagaman wrote in the association's newsletter that he now owns the property, under 10 acres, and plans to keep the stone walls, add a new tin roof on vigas, and build a new 30-foot front wall with store windows over the old pump islands. He described the store, a residence and five lodging rooms, all roofless, and plans lodging rooms and an annual Fourth of July picnic. We found no report of work starting. A video posted in February 2026 shows the sandstone walls standing behind a fence, a new metal sign reading "Richardson Store" under a Sinclair emblem hung on the fence, and the fallen portico still heaped at the north end. The NPS lists the store as not open to the public.

What's there

Along the frontage road

Old Route 66 crossing Arroyo de las Palomas on a concrete bridge, 0.9 miles east of Montoya, March 2015
Old Route 66 crossing Arroyo de las Palomas on a concrete bridge, 0.9 miles east of Montoya, March 2015 · Photo: Ammodramus, Wikimedia Commons, CC0
"Built 1936, Safe Load 15 Tons": the plaque on the bridge 1.7 miles east of town, March 2015
"Built 1936, Safe Load 15 Tons": the plaque on the bridge 1.7 miles east of town, March 2015 · Photo: Ammodramus, Wikimedia Commons, CC0

The townsite. Legends of America describes Montoya straddling the old highway. Coming from the east, an old cemetery sits on the south side of the road. North of the road, a couple of old buildings stand behind a fence on a private ranch, now among newer industrial-style buildings. Near the store is a building with "Cold Beer" painted on its side and two tall concrete posts in front, probably another gas station, with a large foundation and an old wooden teeter-totter nearby. Montoya residents still get their mail at metal cluster boxes, the store's owner wrote in 2025.

Church and cemetery. A video posted in October 2024 shows the Montoya cemetery on the east edge of town locked, with small plaques on local history mounted along its fence. The creator gives 1910 as the cemetery's founding. South of the tracks stands a small white church with a gable roof and a bell, the St. Joan of Arc mission of the Tucumcari parish, which the 1964 USGS sheet labels Juana de Darca. It was fenced, the creator says, until recently.

Casa Alta. The two-story stone house often called a store was the home of Sylvan R. and Maria Ignacia Hendren, built in the early 1900s, by the family's account. It had four rooms, with the living room and kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs, a slanted roof that fed a big round cistern, and a smokehouse. Wikipedia calls it Casa Alta and says it is abandoned.

The old road. East of town the frontage road is old Route 66, running between the railroad and I-40. Photos from March 2015 show three of its concrete bridges over Arroyo de las Palomas and its side channels, 0.9, 1.7 and 2.5 miles east of Montoya. The plaque on the middle one reads "Built 1936, Safe Load 15 Tons, F.A.P. 5-Reo., Second Section." The plaque holes on the first bridge are empty.

The 1964 USGS Montoya sheet below shows the townsite north of the railroad, a church labeled Juana de Darca south of it, and a four-lane divided highway south of the tracks signed I-40, US 54 and US 66, with an interchange to the southwest. The 1954 sheet marks the T-4 Ranch to the west.

  • Richardson Store (roofless since 2014)
  • St. Joan of Arc church
  • Richardson residence and pump shed
  • Hendren stone house (Casa Alta)
  • "Cold Beer" building
  • Montoya cemetery
  • Route 66 bridges (1936)
USGS topographic map of Montoya north of the railroad, with I-40 and US 54 to the south and the interchange at lower left
USGS The National Map, topo. Montoya sits north of the railroad. The old road runs between the tracks and I-40, which carries US 54 too, and the interchange is at lower left.
Aerial view of a cluster of buildings with red roofs north of the railroad, with the tracks and highway at bottom right
Aerial imagery, closer in. A cluster of buildings, several with red roofs, sits north of the railroad, with dirt tracks running out across the range. The railroad and the old road cross the bottom right corner.

Historic maps

Montoya on USGS maps, 1954–1964

Crops from the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection, centered on the townsite. Each sheet shows what surveyors mapped that year; compare them with today's topo and aerial on this page.

USGS topographic map around Montoya, 1954
Santa Fe sheet, 1954, 1:250,000 · U.S. Geological Survey, public domain · catalog record

Map & directions

Getting there

Tucumcari is the nearest town, 22 miles east on I-40. Take the Montoya exit, exit 311 by the store owner's account, onto Historic Route 66. The store stands on the south side of the frontage road east of the exit. From Albuquerque it's I-40 east the whole way.

USGS topographic map of I-40 from Tucumcari west to Montoya, with the route drawn along the interstate

Base map: USGS The National Map (public domain). Routes: OSRM on © OpenStreetMap contributors data (ODbL), computed October 2026. Times assume dry roads.

From central Tucumcari22.5 miabout 27 min
  1. From central Tucumcari, follow South 1st Street (NM 209) to I-40.1.7 mi
  2. Take I-40 west.20.1 mi
  3. Take the Montoya exit and turn right onto Historic Route 66.0.4 mi
  4. The route ends with a left turn toward the townsite point, among private ranch buildings north of the railroad. Stop instead at the Richardson Store on the frontage road.0.3 mi
Google Maps directionsApple MapsOpenStreetMap

Directions go to the Richardson Store, on the old Route 66 frontage road, where the drive ends, not to the townsite.

Road and safety notes

  • The old Route 66 frontage road runs along the north side of I-40 east of the Montoya exit, past the store and over the 1936 bridges.
  • Legends of America calls the old road west toward Newkirk rough and narrow in places, with low spots that can flood in rain or snow.
  • Montoya has no services. Fuel, food and lodging are in Tucumcari.
  • The store, the houses and the ranch land around them are private. Look from the road.

Photos

Montoya in photos

Visitor reports

Been to Montoya?

Been there lately? Tell the next visitor what you found: whether you could get in, the state of the road and what's still standing. Photos are welcome. We read every report before it appears here.

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Nearby

Other sites near Montoya

Straight-line distance from the townsite to other mapped sites in our New Mexico index.

Sources

Sources and credits

  1. ghosttowns.com, "Montoya": fact sheet fields (county, road, climate, best time, remains), the 1902 founding; a contributor's note on the Hendren house.
  2. Wikipedia, "Montoya, New Mexico", retrieved October 2026: coordinates (GNIS), the 1902 railroad stop, the Kohns and the T4, the 1946 Bell Ranch purchase and the 2023 acreage, the Sinclair station, Casa Alta.
  3. Wikipedia, "Richardson Store": the store's coordinates, 1908 and 1918, I-40 in 1956, the 1978 listing, the 2014 roof collapse.
  4. National Park Service, "Richardson Store", updated April 23, 2026: not open to the public; the Rock Island work camp, G. W. Richardson, the 1918 road and move, the building's design, the post office window, I-40 in 1956, the residence, the 1978 listing.
  5. National Register of Historic Places, Richardson Store, reference 78001819: listed November 16, 1978.
  6. Route 66 News, "Roof of Richardson Store building collapses", October 20, 2014: the August or September 2014 collapse after heavy rains, the store built in the mid- to late 1920s.
  7. Tim Hagaman, "Exit 311 to the Richardson Store restoration in Montoya, New Mexico", New Mexico Route 66 Association, January 10, 2025: the owner's restoration plan, exit 311, the 1928 date, the 1978 closing, I-40 in Quay County from 1959, the post office, the cluster mailboxes.
  8. Kathy Weiser, "Ghost Towns West of Tucumcari, New Mexico", Legends of America, updated May 2020: Roundtree, the cemetery, the fenced ranch buildings, Casa Alta, the store's 1925 opening and mid-1970s closing, the "Cold Beer" building, the road to Newkirk.
  9. BATTLEFOXX LIVING EARTH, "Route 66 Montoya Ghost Town, New Mexico Richardson's Store", YouTube, posted October 14, 2024: the locked cemetery and its plaques, the St. Joan of Arc church, the fenced store. Not embedded: the creator walks onto the church lot.
  10. Traveling Robert, "Route 66 Episode 21: New Mexico, the Albuquerque Loop to Arizona", YouTube, posted February 22, 2026: the newest visit we found; the store fenced, its new sign, the fallen roof, the cemetery gate. Not embedded: Montoya is a minute of an hour-long episode.
  11. USGS historical topographic maps: Santa Fe 1:250,000 (1954), Montoya 1:24,000 (1964). Land status: USGS PAD-US 4 (no public land at the townsite), checked October 22, 2026. Elevation: USGS 3D Elevation Program point query. Routes: OSRM on OpenStreetMap data, October 2026. Not field-checked.

Photo and map credits